Billy Kelleher (Renew). – Mr President, I am saddened by the actions of certain Member State governments when it comes to the disgraceful treatment of LGBTI citizens and voted in favour of the resolution to show my solidarity with these citizens. Has history not taught us the folly of separating one group of citizens from another? Equally, the idea that you can just create LGBTI—free zones is ludicrous and bemoans the ignorance of humanity.

LGBTI citizens have every right to live, work and enjoy freedoms the rest of society enjoys. If certain Member States want to restrict the rights of their LGBTI citizens they need to think long and hard about whether it is compatible with their membership of the European Union.

One of the proudest moments of my political life occurred in 2015 when the Irish people overwhelmingly, in a public vote, voted to extend civil right marriages to our LGBTI brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, cousins, neighbours and friends. It is shameful that within our Union, there are still those who resist equality; it must be called out and opposed.

Sheila Ritchie (Renew). – Mr President, the following comments have been made by members of the Polish LGBTI community: ‘Now it’s cool and trendy to be anti-gay, we don’t feel safe here’. PiS’s new focus on countering western LGBTI ideology has largely replaced its prior rallying calls against migrants. I see my colleague is no longer in the Chamber for me to call her out on her anti-sub-Saharan phobia, because it is the nature of phobia that you just choose another group to speak and act against. A PiS member of the regional parliament who led the campaign for the LGBT-free-zone declaration said recently: ‘For us, the whole LGBTQ thing is something abnormal. We feel it is a sick minority trying to impose itself on the healthy mainstream of society’. We were told in the debate that the Poles tolerated homophobia. They do not.

Daniel Hannan (ECR). – Mr President, once again we have a resolution called a ‘resolution on motherhood and apple pie’ that then turns out to say we need a common European policy on maternity and we need standardised European patisserie.

I’m a libertarian: I’ve always found it utterly bewildering that governments should wish to discriminate against their citizens on grounds of sexual preference. I was an early supporter in my country of equality of the age of consent and of civil partnerships, but that isn’t what this motion’s about; it’s about the abuse of power to ‘Europeanise’ something where there is absolutely no basis in the European Treaties for Brussels involvement.

And the reason these motions are repeatedly put down is solely as a sort of exercise so that virtue—signalling halfwits can then put out a press release saying: ‘X or Y voted against this and therefore doesn’t care about homophobia’. That is not the case. We care about due process. It is perfectly possible to believe in equality and dignity for all citizens, but also to believe in the sanctity of the ballot box and the democratic process.

Rory Palmer (S&D). – Mr President, LGBTI isn’t an ideology, it’s who people are. The point I want to make in my explanation of vote is that this resolution talks about homophobia in sport, and sadly, on occasion, and in places, that happens. What the resolution doesn’t talk about, though, that I want to mention, is the important role sport can play in tackling that homophobia. We’ve just had another very successful Stonewall Rainbow Laces campaign in football. I’m a member of the British Horseracing Authority’s diversity and inclusion steering group, and there’s really important, valuable work going on in British horseracing at the moment across the area of equality and diversity. So let me just make this point: unfortunately, sport sometimes is the arena of homophobia, but it’s also the place where we can help win the race to full equality and kick the homophobes and those who make homophobic abuse off the pitch for good.

Claire Fox (NI). – Mr President, I abstained on this motion because it centres on criminalising hate speech, which is problematic and censorious. Who decides what’s ‘hate speech’? For example, in the UK, many of those labelled ‘transphobic’ are lesbians and feminists who won’t conform to the new intolerant transgender activists and their orthodoxies that actually demand that we women deny our bodies biologically and our autonomy.

Secondly, the EU’s attempts at disciplining other nation states and their democratic decisions because they won’t fit in with your orthodoxy does not win or help the arguments for equality. Bureaucratic imposition is not political victory. Passing motions is not winning hearts and minds.

Jackie Jones (S&D). – Mr President, I support this cross-party resolution on public discrimination and hate speech, whether online or not, against LGBTI people and express my solidarity in the ongoing fight for LGBTI rights across Europe and the globe. Tolerance and inclusiveness are the foundations upon which the EU was built and continues to build. We must work together in the fight on the ongoing backlash against LGBTI right across Europe. There is no room for LGBT-free zones across Europe or the continent or the globe.

We must strongly support the role of education in promoting healthy relationships, self-respect and human rights and dignity. That’s particularly the case for girls across Europe. We must also protect the freedom of movement of LGBTI families through concrete measures and protection of the core EU rights as enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and we must not only defend them but expand them. So for example, in any free trade agreement, we must have an equality and human rights impact assessment, and if it fails, there is no deal.

Martin Horwood (Renew). – Mr President, I am pleased to express my strong support for the resolution we’ve passed today in this Parliament against public discrimination and hate speech against LGBTI people.

I have to tell Mr Brudziński and his Conservative colleagues that it is right, I’m afraid, to highlight the cases in Poland – cases which now include the extraordinary case of Bishop Szymon Niemiec of the Reformed Church in Warsaw, who is facing prosecution simply for conducting services of prayer and support for the LGBTI community in Warsaw. This is the kind of prosecution that completely fails to respect the underlying values of the European Union. LGBTI rights are human rights, and they must be respected.